I am a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty,' as the title of the page suggests. However, writing from the 'left of center' should not be confused with writing for the left as I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers. In addition to the pages of Forbes.com, you can find me every Saturday morning on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network and at various other times during the week serving as a liberal talking head on other Fox News and Fox Business Network shows. I also serve as a Democratic strategist with Mercury Public Affairs.

During a Monday afternoon appearance on The Sean Hannity Radio Show, I found myself debating both Mr. Hannity and Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney on the topic of whether or not the Obama plan to allow the Bush tax credits to expire for those earning more than $250,000 would result in hindered job growth.

During the discussion, Varney—a very bright and knowledgeable guy when it comes to economics—argued that the Bush tax cuts had resulted in significant job growth. To the true believers, Mr. Varney’s position represents a restatement of the obvious—cutting taxes creates jobs while increasing taxes will likely have the opposite effect.

While I was a bit more focused on the dismal jobs picture at the end of the Bush second term during out radio debate, it struck me that it might be a good idea to take a closer look at the assertion that the Bush tax cuts produced an era of expanded job growth, a benefit to be expected when taxes to the wealthy are cut.

The results?

If the tax cuts delivered to the wealthy by President Bush are the shining beacon of policy to be used when making the case that reducing taxes leads to increased jobs numbers, tax hawks are going to have to go back to the drawing board or hope that the dishonestly of their political pitch can survive the truth come election day because the facts just don’t back up the assertion.

It turns out that Politifact had already taken a look this issue as a result of a claim made by Speaker John Boehner during a 2011 appearance on “The Today Show” where Boehner was singing the job creating praises of the Bush tax cuts—a claim that the fact checking organization determined to be wholly false.

To come up with the fairest possible assessment, we use the period commencing in June 2001 (the month the first of the tax cuts were passed by Congress) through the pre-recession employment peak that came in January, 2008. Note that I am not ‘counting’ the recession that took hold during the end of the Bush Administration and the resulting job losses against the tax cuts.

To further fairly assess the number of jobs gained during the relevant period, the analysis uses both methods used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to establish employment and unemployment numbers. The first method employed—the Current Employment Statistics (CES)— is the survey Governor Scott Walker informed us is the more accurate method of measuring jobs because it involves actual surveys of large numbers of employers on a state-by-state basis. For those who may not ‘recall’, shortly before the recent election in Wisconsin, Governor Walker released newly configured employment numbers revealing that he had actually created jobs in Wisconsin despite the BLS statistics indicated that jobs had, in fact, been lost under his governance. Walker did this by using the CES data compiled by his state—rather than the CPS data—despite the fact that the numbers had not yet been verified by the Department of Labor.

Still, Walker was quick to remind us that the CES is the far more accurate measurement of employment because it tracks a large number of employers in a state rather than the more narrow survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS). Fair enough. According to the CES data , the employment numbers during the period commencing in June 2001 through January, 2008 were as follows:

If we use the alternate survey measurement, the Current Population Survey (CPS), which, as noted above, collects data via a smaller survey of individuals and families and produces the numbers used to deliver us the monthly unemployment rate—a measurement Scott Walker considered less reliable and subject to revision by the CES results— the numbers appear a bit better.

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You are right the need for real tax reformand some Republicans being Keynsians too – they are usually Republicans in name only.

But we have a fundamental spending problem. We don’t have a revenue problem.

Evev Keynsians would see that our systems of monetary and spending controls are fabrications. If all agency heads would have to sign Sarbanes-Oxley statements annually, they would all be in federal prison by now.

Even Keynsians have no reason to object to common sense principals of strong controls, including sound fund accounting and zero base budgeting. They also would agree that the GAO and the IG’s should have more teeth. There should be some independant appeal process, whereby, if, for example, the GAO analysis documents severe overlaps and lack of controls in the 40 plus job training programs, and the 15 plus fiod nutrition programs, then Congress must act to correct. There is zero corrective action. Read some of the GAO reports and you will go crazy when you see the agency heads tell the GAO to buzz off. It is sickening. The only way to stop the bleeding is to cut the funding. The BS will still robably continue, bur, at least it will cost us less.

Waste, fraud, abuse, improper payments and incompetency account for at least one third of all revenues – probably half. In my experience, work flow issues are assumed to be at least 20% inefficient even in the best managed corporations. This should be easy. But, we still have a government insisting we have need for more and more revenues, when, for example, they cannot explain why there is still a teleohone excise tax on our monthly bills that was put in to place to fund the Spanish-American War.

If we ask, why do we need Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, and Education – why can’t we zero base, then transfer any essential services left within those agencies plus the funding to go back to the states – we get hooted and tarred as radical lunatics, just for asking the question.

Rick, the US total taxation as a percentage of GDP is about 26%. The Eurozone countries and the UK – average over 40%. What economy would you guess has had more long term economic growth, higher per-capita GDP, higher wages, and lower unemployment employment? What US political party wants to push total taxes up? What political party wants lower taxes? How does a government argue they need more revenue when they light one third of it on fire through waste, fraud, abuse, improper payments, and sheer incompetence?

We are the world’s largest economy and lower taxes are part of the reason because it allows us a competitive edge compared to the rest of the world. Lower costs, higher profits. Higher profits, expand markets. Expand markets, hire more people. Standard of living goes up for everybody.

You wrote – “We are the world’s largest economy and lower taxes are part of the reason because it allows us a competitive edge compared to the rest of the world. Lower costs, higher profits. Higher profits, expand markets. Expand markets, hire more people. Standard of living goes up for everybody.”

Really? Because my conservative friends are constantly trying to tell me that our corporate taxes are the highest in the world (they aren’t when you consider the actual, effective rate) and yet here you are, one of our resident conservatives, claiming that our lower taxes are the resin we have lower cots, higher profits and expanded markets. You conservatives need to get your story straight!

Seriously! Are you saying we became the world’s biggest economy overnight, with the Bush tax cuts? Because I’m pretty sure we were the world’s largest economy before Bush and people paid higher taxes. In fact, I believe we have been the world’s largest economy for some time now and people-especially at the top of the economic pyramid-paid a hell of lot more taxes in the past. China is projected to overtake the US in this decade, primarily because the government spends a bucket load on economic development; principally in infrastructure.

Rick, I don’t think it is a matter of liberal v. conservative. Our statutory corporate rate is one of the highest in the OECD. The trend has been for theirs to go lower and ours to stay the same. I don’t think even President Obama would be heard to day he favors higher corporate rates. I have not looked at effective rates for comparable industry multi-nationals, but, it would seem pretty dumb if we were on the losing end of that stick – after all the money they pay for their legions of tax lawyers and DC lobbyists.

But if you look at total taxation/GDP, unemployment rates, and per-capita GDP – I think that is a better picture of the total cost of government policy. I don’t think there is any debate that the more money governments extract from their economies, the less economic growth they see long term. Unless you are perhaps smoking something strange with Mr Krugmann and channeling Mr Keynes.

Rick: Thanks for your article on the Bush tax cuts. At first I thought I was going to read something that would challenge my beliefs about the job growth during the Bsh Administration. As I started to read, I noted you relied very heavily on the Current Employment Statistics and you felt you would get a hearing among conservatives because Scott Brown relied on the same resource. Using the CES, from June 2001 to January 2008, the total increase was 5,949,000 more people employed. Then to be totally even handed you quoted from the Current Population Survey and came up with the figure of 9,534,000 more people employed during the Bush Administration.

I admire your attempt to use reliable surveys to make your point, but how reliable are these surveys. We have at least 12 to 20 million Hispanics in our society, many of whom are illegally here, working but to not paying taxed or reported as employed individuals. I live near Oxnard, Ca and I see the lines every Friday where workers cash their checks and get paid under the table. Do you think these people are included in the surveys you quoted. If I am totally conservative, then I would add another 6 million more people employed during the Bush years. Now we’re in the double digit category with the previous presidents you named.

Let me continue. What about the employed US citizens who are not paying taxes, get paid under the table, are living under the radar of the federal tax rolls? These are middle class people with small businesses in the private sector and refuse to pay their fair share. Yes, we also include people receiving unemployment but are working and receiving their unemployment checks regardless.

The bottom line is that the surveys you relied on to cast doubt on the effectiveness of the Bush tax cuts as job creators are faulty and do not include various large sectors of our society. Perhaps, in due respect to your research capabilities, you may want to check out other resources that take into account the undeclared employed sections of our society. I’d love to read that article and gladly repost it on my blogs.

Louis – you do raise an interesting point regarding the counting of illegals (or lack of counting of illegals.) I will admit that I don’t know if any of these counts make it into either BLS survey and would certainly acknowledge that they probably do not. However, I think your attempt to change the numbers by adding this part of the workforce in does not succeed for the following reasons-

1. The presence of illegal workers is hardly a new phenomenon. Remember that it was President Reagan who pushed through the first amnesty. And while I would accept that there are likely more illegals working today as compared to those earlier years, the increases are not so significant between say, Clinton years and W. years as to dramatically skew the numbers. In other words, to make it work out the way you are suggesting, there would have to be somewhere between 2.5% and 5.3% more illegal workers in the years 2001-2007 than there were in during the Clinton years that immediately preceded. This is simply not the case. While you are prepared to add 6 million workers during the Bush years, why are you not adding some number of millions during the preceding presidencies? You might want to read these figures as calculated by an anti-immigration website:

“While President Bill Clinton made some efforts to combat illegal immigration during the 1990s, the problem remained. In 1996 the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was passed. Still, leaders from Central American and Caribbean nations relied heavily on untaxed remittances sent back to their countries from the United States, and worried that Clinton would support mass deportations. While at least paying lip service to enforcement of laws, Clinton assured these leaders that there would be no mass deportations. There were about 7 million illegal aliens residing in the U.S. when he left office.

The eight years of President George W. Bush’s administration saw a marked increase in illegal immigration and a drop in immigration enforcement throughout much of his tenure. For example, the number of illegal aliens arrested in workplace cases fell from nearly 3,000 in 1999 to 445 in 2003, with the number of criminal cases against employers during this period falling from 182 to four. Not surprisingly, by 2005, there were an estimated 10-20 million illegal aliens living in the United States. Even at the end of 2007 after the Bush administration’s enforcement crackdown had been underway; only 92 criminal arrests of employers had taken place, in an economy that, according to the Washington Post, includes 6 million businesses that employ more than 7 million illegal foreign workers. www.endillegalimmigration.com/History_of_Illegal_Immigration_in_US/index.shtml

Thus, between Clinton and Bush, the number appears to remain at about 7 million illegal foreign workers.

Going back further, you will find that following the Reagan amnesty (which did not really work), there were about 3 million illegal workers. So, if you add in another 4 million to the workforce during the Bush years, while adding in the illegal workforce for preceding presidents, you will find that the math reveals the numbers do not add up the way you would appear to like them to. Sorry,

2. You are switching the measuring metric and not in a particularly useful way. The only way we really measure employment is via the BLS surveys.However, you are suddenly tossing in the number of people who are not paying taxes. No disrespect, but this is completely irrelevant to the point and a complete perversion of any effort to reach and meaningful number-as is your research based on seeing long lines of illegal workers in Oxnard. I suppose I could tell you that I live in Youngstown, Ohio and I never see a line of illegal workers-therefore, by your reasoning, there are no illegal workers in America. Obviously, this would be ridiculous.

While you begin your comment by appearing to be looking for some truth, your ideological prejudices show through. That is useful to nobody. Look a bit closer and I think you will find that my analysis is pretty much on the money.

And by the way, it was not Scott Brown who got involved with the CES- it was Governor Scott Walker.

Louis – it occurs to me that in my effort to give you adequate consideration, I’ve let you pull me completely off track. The point of this article is to respond to those who argue that tax cuts lead to increased jobs (please see the first paragraph of the piece.) I think even you would agree that those who pursue this argument are not talking about the benefits of tax cuts vis aa vis creating jobs for illegals! Thus, the only thing possibly relevant would be the legal jobs created as a result of tax cuts. By utilizing the BLS figures, we are looking at an apples v. apples comparison because we are looking at how many legal jobs were created by each of these administrations. This is what I get for showing too much respect. I should have pointed out that you were completely and utterly off base from moment one. That’s what I get for trying to be be fair and balanced. Your argument is wholly and completely irrelevant to the point of the piece.

Rick: Thanks for responding to my comment. I appreciate your response. I want to give one last reply as this argument can go on forever. In response to my comment and out of respect to you as author of this piece, I’ll give you the last word.

First, my comment about the uncounted illegal immigrant workers in the US is much more than “interesting.” Furthermore, you are “not sure” if these numbers made it into the BLS survey. That’s quite an admission. Even though, according to the way you read the math about illegal immigrant workers, I did succeed in casting doubt about your reporting of the figures and may have caused your readers to question if you are telling “the truth about the Bush Tax cuts and job growth.”

Second, I am not guilty of having ideological prejudices. I am not a person blind to the errors of President Bush. He and Reagan did an abysmal job regarding stemming the tide of illegals coming into the US. I live in California where the results of Reagan’s poor policies regarding illegals have seriously harmed the California economy. My point was not comparing the illegal population under Clinton versus Bush. I am solely after accurate figures. To bolster my point, though we disagree on figures, you did add another 3-4 million workers under the Bush regime. True? I appreciate and respect you for conceding that point.

Third, a Reuters article says the illegal immigration population leveled off at 11 million in 2011. Here’s the link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/01/us-immigration-study-idUSTRE7107XV20110201. According to your anti-illegal immigration sources, we are still off about 4 million. I personally think the truth about the number of illegals in the US is way off the mark, and a figure close to 18 million is more accurate. How can I say that? Unlike you as a supposed resident of Youngstown, Ohio, I live in a border state. I report what I see because I am living in the midst of the very situation I am describing. In case you forgot, California borders Mexico. I am not so ignorant as to base my argument on what I see in my neighborhood as indicative of what would be true for the rest of the US. I work in a situation where I observe the number of Hispanics, illegal and legal as part of the workforce and part of the California culture. Hispanics are hard workers. I don’t see them on the streets with “Work for food” signs. They will do anything they can to get work. I respect the culture for that very reason. So if there are 11 million illegals in the US, it is not mere conjecture to think more than 75% of them are working and at the same time not being reported.

Methinks you are living in a bubble regarding the number of illegals living and working in the US because you know if the truth be known, your figures are off mark and your article inaccurate. The employment figures for both Clinton and Bush would accelerate but because of the increase of illegals in the US, Bush would come out ahead. We can argue that point all day. I suggest you check out the vast amount of research done by Heather McDonald of the Manhattan Institute to read some very thorough articles on the illegal immigration issue.

Fourth, you say “However, you are suddenly tossing in the number of people who are not paying taxes. No disrespect, but this is completely irrelevant to the point and a complete perversion of any effort to reach and meaningful number . . . ” Irrelevant? You are quoting workforce numbers based on the surveys you choose to quote as primary resources for your article and I am telling you the surveys are inaccurate thus making your argument about job growth under Bush inaccurate. If a statistician measures the number of people in the workforce and is unable to count a sizeable segment of the population that go on “ unreported” that is not irrelevant, but quite the contrary. Your logic escapes me on this point.

Last, my number may not “add up the way I want them to.” However, my numbers do add to the employment figures under Bush, as you admitted. You and I will never know the truth about how many unreported workers exist in the US. Yet I am sure the numbers have not decreased.

You and I are far apart on numbers regarding the the illegal immigrants who have been part of the workforce from Clinton to Bush. Maybe we both missed another fact. Illegal immigrant workers are not joining the corporate world. Sure, there are many exceptions. The truth be known, the majority of Hispanics work in blue color, menial positions as well as managerial positions in department stores etc. Could it be that the Bush tax cuts created jobs for the middle class instead of just adding positions to corporate Bush cronies? It is something to consider.

Thank you Rick for correcting me about my error with Governor Scott Walker. I stand corrected. Please come to California; spend some time south of San Diego at the border and observe the daily heavy influx of traffic of Mexico’s residents coming into the US; spend time observing what ethnicity makes up the workforce in CA. More power to them. I hope they would join us as US citizens and make an even greater contribution. But their participation (especially illegals) in the economy needs to be counted. Any survey you or I quote that ignores these figures does an injustice to our evaluation of a past president’s job growth record.

No disrespect but you appear to continue to be missing the point. And I used Youngstown, Ohio as an example to make the point. Until last week, I lived in Southern California for over thirty years.

The point is to make an apples to apples comparison. You continue to want to pretend that this boost in illegal workers suddenly occurred post the Bush tax cuts when this obviously is not the case. Thus, you want to add in all these workers who may be missed by the BLS counts post-bush tax cuts but don’t seem to want to acknowledge that, at very least a large percentage of those worker numbers would have been there pre-Bush tax cuts numbers. Since we don’t know the counts – they are illegals- we use the only data we have – the BLS surveys! If we apply your logic, there were more job increases (including illegals) during all of the administrations previous to the Bush tax cuts, although I would readily admit that they would be less during, say, the Reagan years than the Bush and Obama years. All data is formulated by what is available. If we took your approach, nobody would ever have a basis for knowing anything. You continue to show all indications that you are interested in skewing numbers the way you would like them to be rather than using the measuring tools that exist -ie., playing by the only rules available for all sides of an issue.